Reality
by turnaroundbrighteyesxx
Summary: The Glee kids are all grown up and have kids, and they all end up back in Lima. The next generation is at McKinley now, but in addition to their drama, the original Gleeks aren't done with their own. T for language.
1. Chapter 1

**FIRST AND ONLY DISCLAIMER: I do not own Glee, nor do I own any of the songs that I will use later. **

**A/N- So this is my first Glee fic. I've wanted to do a Glee kids fic for a while, so here it goes. I'm not sure if it'll turn out good, but hopefully it will. To avoid confusion, here is the chart of children:**

**Rachel and Puck- Isabella (Izzy) (main character)**

**Quinn and Finn- Jake**

**Brittany and Artie- Valerie (Val or V)**

**Santana and Sam- Amy**

**Kurt and Blaine- Chase (adopted, of course)**

**Mercedes and Shane- Faith**

**Tina and Mike- Greg**

**I don't necessarily ship all of these couples (I literally had to sit down and draw out how I wanted the couples to work for this story), but this is just how it's going to be, FOR NOW. There will also be plenty of parental drama, trust me. Alright, well, leggo.**

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><p><span>Reality<span>

Chapter One: Move

"You have _got_ to be kidding me."

"No, Isabella, if you hadn't noticed, we have not been in much of a joking mood lately. We are moving to Lima next month, whether you like it or not."

I resisted the urge to correct my obnoxious mother on using my full name as a rare tear snaked down my cheek. I looked around the small New York apartment that had slowly but surely become my home. I gave a small glance at my father, who was looking down, obviously trying to avoid making eye contact with me.

What was bad was that I had slightly seen it coming. My mother had been the star of several Broadway musicals since her graduation from NYADA, including Wendla in _Spring Awakening _and Christine in _Phantom of the Opera. _Her continuous career had kept the small family of three on the good side, financially.

However, when she took up the role of Christine in _Phantom_'s sequel _Love Never Dies_, the musical received horrible reviews, and it quickly closed. After that, she was absolutely devastated, and I knew why. She had a need to be loved; she always had. And when the audience didn't love her, she cracked. Even one bad review from one of her earlier roles put her in tears. So after a figurative slap in the face as heavy as this, she couldn't recover. She went to audition after audition, but she didn't get any of them. Her vocal range suffered. She was left jobless, and so was dad.

We easily burnt through all the money mom had made from her previous jobs in a year. My parents were desperate for any job, but nothing was available. And living in New York City is not cheap. Mom and dad were always fighting, which I guess led them to stop paying attention to me. Good grades, bad grades, weekend plans, homework, and other things that seemed to interest them so much before weren't noticed anymore. It was as if I wasn't even in their lives, as if I wasn't even there. They continued their fighting and their crying when I walked in the room, and barely acknowledged my presence.

Which I guess inspired me to bleach the absolute shit out of my hair in the summer after eighth grade. I had walked home from my friend's apartment, where we had done the deed, and the minute I walked in the front door mom and dad stopped yelling at each other and started yelling at me.

I smiled the whole time. Does that make me a sick person?

_I_ don't think so, at least. I was grounded for three weeks, but it was worth it. At least they knew I existed. But the glory faded fast. Simple things such as coming in past curfew and getting another piercing on my ear barely came on their radar. So I decided to do something drastic. My big Jewish nose had become excessively annoying anyways. A friend's sister's friend's cousin was dating a cosmetologist who agreed to get rid of the ugly thing without parental consent, for an extra charge. For the icing on the cake, I stole the money from my parents.

When I came home with bandages all over my nose, my mother looked slightly worried. "Honey, what happened?" she asked, while looking through the job section of the newspaper. It was the first time she'd talked to me in a week. I just grinned.

"Oh, nothing" I practically sang. "It feels _good as new!"_

She did a double take, just then noticing that the former prominence of my nose was gone, and replaced with a tiny, cute, albeit bruised, nose. She got up and her hands hovered close to my face, before she burst out into loud, noisy tears. My father stuck his face around the corner to see what was going on. When he noticed my nose, his face turned bright red with anger.

"How could you do this without our permission?" He yelled at me as mom continued to sob. "It's not only an insult to us, but to your heritage!"

I rolled my eyes. "Cut the dramatics, dad. It's just a nose." This made him even more angry.

That had been the week before now. The announcement. That we were moving to some cow-town in the middle of fucking nowhere in Ohio that mom and dad grew up in.

"Remember, you brought this upon yourself" my mother snapped harshly. I gave her a look like a wounded animal. My mother could be ignorant and hysterical, but she was rarely mean. Her expression softened.

"This isn't a punishment, sweetheart… You know we can't afford to live here anymore, and we know we haven't been able to spend as much time with you as we used to-"

I snorted. It had been a bit of an understatement. She gave me a quizzical look, and continued.

"I was hoping that moving there would give us more of an opportunity to work on us, this family, so we can all love each other again."

Love each other? That was a good one. Last night her parents had been screaming at each other, worse than ever before. It was clearly not an act of love.

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><p>I had been under my covers, listening to my iPod, trying to drown out most of the screaming, but it wasn't working. I ended up taking out the headphones anyways.<p>

"This isn't high school anymore, Noah. You can't just get drunk or sing a song and expect all of your problems to go away! You need to enter reality and realize that we need to actually do something if we can get out of this situation!"

Dad laughed without humor. "You think I need a reality check, Rachel? You have been living in a fantasy your whole life, all throughout high school, even now. You really think this could work? You're not a star, Rachel. You need to step off your cloud and realize you're just normal like everyone else."

I heard a sniffle. "I- I…" Mom stammered. Dad had hit a soft spot. Mom had to be a star, the center of attention. She was lost without it. Normal was something she could not deal with. I heard a door slam. I slowly drifted off to sleep.

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><p>I sent eye-daggers at mom before pounding off into my room. "Start packing, young lady!" She shouted. I screamed some obscenities at her before pulling out my phone.<p>

_Moving_, I texted to Cori, the girl I had been friends with since second grade.

_Are you serious? _She replied instantly. I had confided in her in the worries that they would be looking for somewhere cheaper to live.

_Dead serious,_ I sent back.

_Somewhere close to NYC though, right? _I sighed as a few more tears slipped down.

_About how many miles away do you think Lima, Ohio is, roughly? _A few seconds later, she called me in tears.

"No!" she practically screamed. I nodded, and then realized she couldn't see me. "Yes. Trust me, I might kill myself on the way there."

"Listen, we're not going to be those friends who swear we'll stay in touch and then slowly fade away, alright? I won't let that happen. You are my best friend forever no matter what. I will drive all the way to Limia or Limo or whatever and take you if I need to, alright?" I grinned. Cori somehow always knew just the right thing to say.

"Alright," I responded. "I promise"

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><p>I sighed as I cramped in between mom, dad, and several boxes as my grandfathers drove in the front and passenger seats. I looked around to see nothing like glamorous New York City, but everything that looked like something right of the set of One Tree Hill or something of the sort. It could only be described as <em>cute<em>.

I wasn't into _cute_.

We were going to live in my grandfathers' house for a while, until we could get a house of our own. We turned into the drive way of a medium-sized home. My mom immediately dashed upstairs, almost squealing, to see her old bedroom. My dad rolled his eyes, but it wasn't in a mean kind of way, but in a _she's annoying but I still love her _kind of way. The change of scenery had an almost instant effect on my parents. They had been excitedly pointing out random places they remembered on the way here, and I even saw them exchange a small peck on the lips. Most children would be disgusted, but I appreciated it.

I entered the house. It was definitely home-y, and very well designed. It felt warm and comfortable. The flooring was a dark shade of wood, and all the couches and chairs were some light shade of brown. I went upstairs to see my mom standing in a door way with tears in her eyes. I looked past into the room. It looked like it belonged to a five-year-old. There was pink frilly- well, pink frilly everything. I traced my hand over the pink desk to find a small scratching. It said RB+FH with a heart around it. I furrowed my brow, but I was quickly distracted by mom wrapping her arms around me.

"I'm sorry, darling… I'm sorry about everything." She didn't have to list the things she had done wrong, I knew she meant it with just those few words. "It's okay mom…" I murmured into her shoulder awkwardly. I did love my mom, but I didn't really do _emotional. _She ruffled my blonde hair lovingly, though giving a small frown, obviously at its color. "Maybe you should let your hair go back to its natural color…" she said, already returning to her normal bossy self.

"Nah, I like it like this." I said with a grin. She sighed and suggested that I should go get some of my boxes. I agreed.

As we walked outside, she mentioned, "By the way, you're going to be starting at McKinley on Monday.

I froze. It seemed ridiculous now that I hadn't given a second thought about changing schools. Fantastic.

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><p><strong>AN- So there's the first chapter! It gets more exciting soon, I promise. I know ****Love Never Dies**** hasn't opened on Broadway, just in London before it closed, but I HAD to take a dig at it. It was a truly awful idea to make a ****Phantom**** sequel. Sorry, Lloyd Webber. It reads like a bad E/C fanfiction. I should probably stop this crossover now. Anyways, review! **


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N- I know I haven't updated in forever, and I have no other excuse than that I'm very busy. Thank you for the story alerts and the review! You guys rock. **

**On Mr. Shue's age- I'm thinking he was around 30 when the original glee kids graduated, and its 16ish years later, so he's 46 now. **

Reality

Chapter Two: New

I smeared some eyeliner onto my water line and my eyelid as my mom rushed about for some reason, extremely and unnecessarily excited for my "first day of school".

"Mom, I'm not in kindergarten. It's not my first day of school ever; it's my first day of school in this God-forsaken town." I said as she passed by my open door. She walked back to my doorway and looked at me hurtfully. She walked in my room and stroked my head affectionately. "Look, sweetie, we're trying. That's all you can ask from us." I ducked my head away from her hand without saying anything. She looked regretful. "Maybe tone down the eye makeup a little bit, sweetie?" she asked softly as she left the room. I snorted. Leave problems alone and then maybe they'll go away. That seemed to be the attitude in the family lately.

I glanced around my room, which had previously been a guest room. It was fairly simple; everything was beige and it was filled with half-emptied cardboard boxes, not much out except for my makeup haphazardly strewn across my vanity. I had to dig through several boxes before finding an outfit to wear, making me a bit behind schedule.

I ran down the stairs and picked up a green apple. Mom attempted a semblance of a smile and told me to say hello to a teacher named Mr. Shuester if I ran into him. I nodded and she went back upstairs.

Dad raised his eyebrows at me. "Where did the rest of your clothes go?" he asked. I rolled my eyes, glancing down at my outfit, composed of shorts (the ones Cori used to call my "denim underwear") and a self-ripped Boys Like Girls t-shirt that exposed one shoulder. "Dad, it's hot out."

"I don't care, it's not a beach. Go change."

My blood boiled. "So you think you can start paying attention and caring now? Back in New York I could have gone outside naked and you wouldn't have noticed."

He stood up. "In case you haven't noticed, we're not in New York anymore. I'm your father; you _will_ listen to what I say. I used to go to school there; I know how those boys act. Go upstairs and change, _now._"

I laughed in his face. "No," I said simply. "In case _you _haven't noticed, I'm done with listening to what you and mom say. You guys fucked everything up, and I'm sick of you."

He started yelling things I didn't listen to as I walked out the front door, scooping up my bag on the way. He was supposed to give me a ride today, like that would happen now. The house was only a few blocks away from where her parents had pointed out the school, and I was sure I could figure out how to get there.

I had been right earlier; it was really hot. The sun beat down as I walked, and I prayed that I wouldn't be all sweaty for the first day. That would just be the icing on the cake. I pulled out my phone.

_Do you want to kill me or should I do it myself, _I texted Cori.

_I take it your first day is going swimmingly already, _She immediately responded.

I grinned. _I'm probably grounded for the rest of my life already, because I dropped the f-bomb at my dad._

_Ouch. Not your smartest move, Izzy. Why?_

_He tried to make me change out of my denim underwear and I just lost my shit I guess._ Aha, so I was right, I saw the school approaching and I quickened my pace so I wouldn't be late.

_Got to go, first period is starting, _she responded as I jogged onto school grounds.

I sighed and looked down to put my phone in my bag, when I ran into a solid mass. I glanced up to find whom I was guessing to be a football player, based on his bright red letterman jacket.

"Watch where you're going-" he glanced down to notice, probably, that I was a girl and not an annoying nerd or something, and then smiled.

"Oh, hey, I haven't seen you around before," he said, licking his lips slightly. I rolled my eyes.

"Fuck off, asshole," I muttered, not nearly in the mood. His friends all let out _ooooooooooh_s as I walked away, and he caught my arm. "Wait a sec-"

"Don't fucking touch me," I spat at him, yanking my arm away. I noticed I was being very loose with my language today, but seriously, who did this guy think he was?

I stalked away, half expecting a comeback from him, but I heard nothing. I entered the building and went to the main office to get my locker combo and such.

I half-ran to my first class after collecting all my things from the main office. Spanish, one of the most boring subjects, of course, had to be first. I was getting the feeling that everything in this town was dull. I entered the classroom to find everyone already seated and the teacher in the middle of a lesson.

"Ah, and you must be our new student, Isabella-" he glanced at a sheet of paper- "Puckerman?" he said quizzically. I nodded and stood there, trapped, for there were no desks to take a seat in. He looked at me long and hard, confused, and then looked away. "Well I'm Mr. Shuester, nice to meet you Isabella." Oh. Maybe that's why he was confused. This was Mr. Shue, mom and dad's old glee club teacher or something like that. He probably recognized dad's last name, but since my hair dye and nose job, I didn't even come close to resembling either of my parents.

"Well you can take a se-" He glanced towards his class and he must of realized what I realized a few minutes ago, that their wasn't any empty seats. "Um, I'll go get you a desk from another classroom." He left the room and the class erupted into to chatter while I just stood uncomfortably at the front of the room. After what was probably a few minutes but felt like an hour, Mr. Shuester came back with a desk and placed it in the back, where I practically ran to. He handed me a book and then continued with the lesson.

I crossed my legs and tapped my notebook absentmindedly with my pencil when I heard a course whisper. I ignored it, figuring it wasn't targeted towards me. I heard it again, from the left.

"_Psst, hey! New girl!"_

Great. So I was new girl now. I turned to my left to see, to my horror, the idiotic douche I had run into, quite literally, earlier. He grinned maliciously, and I sunk into my seat. What a great start we were off to so far.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N- Thanks for the reviews and story alerts! I'm glad you guys like it.**

Reality

Chapter 3: Puppy

I stared at the board blankly for the remaining forty-five minutes of class, avoiding eye contact with everyone in the room, especially the rowdy jock (who's name, I'd figured out, was Jake) whom I had the unpleasant experience of already meeting. When the bell rang, I basically sprinted out of the classroom and desperately tried to remember which wing my locker was in. I wandered down the foreign language wing and glanced down the hallway which led into the art wing. _Where the heck is the English wing?_ I thought impatiently. I walked up a flight of stairs to find the science wing, which I knew was close to the English wing. I sighed in relief. Now if I could just remember my combination…

When I reached my locker, I saw, to my dismay, Jake, AKA stupid jock, leaning against my locker. What the hell?

Thankfully, by the time I got there, he had moved and was talking to the girl in the locker next to mine, who was wearing a red and white cheerleading uniform. After a few tries, I finally pried my lock open while listening to their conversation.

"Hey, baby, tomorrow is our four-month, so I was wondering if you wanted to come over because my parents are going out tomorrow night-"

I rolled my eyes. He was as much as a douche as I had assumed. His girlfriend seemed to match my mind set.

"Uh if you think just because it's our four-month you're getting past second, then your crazy." She adjusted her perfectly styled black ponytail in the magnetic mirror in her locker before continuing. "Anyways, we have celibacy club after school tomorrow and-"

"Please tell me you don't really believe in all that celibacy shit. I thought you were just doing it to become popular. Come on Amy, you can't be a prude forever." Wow. I glanced over to see Amy's mouth forming a perfect "O" in offence before she shook it off.

She scoffed at him and he took that as a signal to leave. I finally paid attention to my books and was putting my thousand-pound history one into my bag when another girl approached Amy. She was small, blonde, and looked generally confused. She had a fuzzy hat on and a simple black shirt tucked into paint-splattered white shorts and what looked like two left shoes on. She appeared at the side of Amy's locker almost silently and said in a sheepish voice just as quietly, "Amy?"

Amy looked up and scanned her with deep brown eyes. "I have nothing to say to you, Valerie," she said simply, and started to walk away. "Wait!" the blonde cried desperately, clinging to her shoulder. Amy turned around and gave her a death glare.

"Look, Valerie. You really need to just face it. We are not friends anymore. I need you to stop following me around like a lost puppy, and start living your own life. There's not always going to be someone to pick up the pieces when you have another fucking mental breakdown. I was friends with you when you decided you wanted to start singing. I was friends with you when you got kicked off the Cheerios. But honestly, you're just exhausting to be friends with."

By this time, a large crowd had started paying attention. Valerie looked like a kicked puppy. She looked down and then glanced around for an exit, but there were people surrounding them.

"But- but we were supposed to be… friends forever," she murmured quietly, instinctively scratching her pinkie finger where there was a tiny scar where best friends pricked themselves and mixed blood together to be blood sisters forever.

Amy laughed and rolled her eyes. "We're not little kids anymore. I'm grown up and so are you. So can you please just stop following me around?" Amy gave a small sarcastically friendly wave and turned on her heel down the hallway. Everyone turned to Valerie, wondering what her reaction would be. She looked down sadly and ran down the hall the opposite way with her tail between her legs. I looked after her pityingly.

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><p>I slid my red tray down the line of unappetizing lunch entrées. I thought that lunches were only this gross in like, movies and stuff. But apparently, the really do have a meat surprise, and I was guessing the surprise was that it had expired months ago, by the looks of it. I decided on some pizza with bacon on it, to play it safe. And the smell was absolutely heavenly.<p>

I grabbed chocolate milk and punched in my lunch code to pay and then looked around the cafeteria. Instead of having long, rectangular tables like my old school, it just had small, round ones that could fit eight people. I had been a bit late, so basically everywhere was full, with one or two seats open at a few tables. However, those tables were composed of either cheerleaders eating nothing and just drinking a weird looking sludge out of red WMHS water bottles, jocks that were making fun of a nearby table of theater geeks, and kids wearing all black and headphones, not talking to one another, with screamo music so loud I could hear it from a few yards away.

A bathroom stall was sounding like a better and better seating option when I came upon a sad little table comprised of just one girl, the sad, blue-eyed puppy named Valerie, who was morosely picking at a salad with a miserable little pout on her face. I never considered myself to be a very compassionate person, but my heart just broke at this scene.

I walked over and sat down, and she didn't even notice until I set down my tray. She looked up, startled. Her expression calmed, and she looked into her lap.

"You might not want to sit here," she said so quietly, I almost missed it. "People m-might make fun of you."

I gave her a small grin. "I don't care." I took a bite out of my pizza, and she watched me with interest. She nervously twirled a hanging tassel from her fuzzy hat. We sat in silence for a minute, before she said, "That's nice" in a little whisper.

"What's nice?" I said with a mouth full of delicious cheese and crust.

"That you don't care what people think. I mean, a lot of people say they don't but everybody really does. Like how everyone gets a salad for lunch or doesn't eat at all so they look skinny. I think you're the first girl I've seen eat pizza at school for a year, and you're skinny as a twig," she spoke, thankfully louder than before.

I glanced at my semi-exposed stomach, thanks to the ripped shirt, and shrugged. "Genetics. You're really thin, too," I mentioned, glancing at her high-waist white shorts. She grinned. "Thanks," she said, now picking out the tomatoes from her salad happily and placing them in a napkin.

"You don't like tomatoes?" I asked curiously, glancing at the discarded red fruits. She shook her head. "Nope, they're red like apples so they confuse me sometimes. It's like, I'm biting into a tomato, but I'm expecting it to taste like an apple, and it's just-" she threw her hands up in the air to symbolize complete anarchy. I laughed, an actual, genuine laugh, for the first time in a while. She glanced at me, slightly confused, but then cracked a smile too. "Do you like them? Tomatoes, I mean?" she asked. I nodded and stole one from her pile.

She let out a slight laugh, and we exchanged a look for a second. It was just a look, that barely lasted, but it was one of the most important moments of my life. That look that passed through us was like electricity that was sending us a message. A message that said, _hey, see that girl right there? You guys are best friends now. _

Maybe Lima wouldn't be so bad.

**A/N- So I hope you like this chapter because we got to meet a few new characters. I know some of you are probably like "Where's Chase? Where's Faith? Where's Greg? RAARRR" but trust me, children. In due time. **


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